Never Meet Your Heroes
by Haberdashing
Summary: One-shot in the Twitch Plays Pokemon universe about the protagonist of TPP Black. Jimmy always dreamed of being a host of the voices, but soon learns that the experience isn't everything he imagined it would be.


Jimmy knew that he was nobody special. He never had been. Bianca was funny, energetic, cheerful. Cheren was honest, studious, mature. But Jimmy? He was nothing. He'd never had any special talents, any fields in which he excelled. He knew deep down inside that, no matter how hard he tried, he'd end up living an ordinary life suitable for an ordinary person.

But at least he had his dreams to occupy him.

Cheren studied practical things, things that might lead him to be somebody important one day, but what Jimmy ended up gravitating towards were the dusty old history books his mother always kept on the bookshelf but never touched. While Cheren learned about type effectiveness and battle strategy, Jimmy read up about the great Trainers and leaders of the past, the ones who did great things and lived through what he could only imagine. Cheren may know how Poke Balls work and which ones are best to use in which situations, but Jimmy knew who invented them. He marveled at the thought that there had been a day when all Pokemon were wild, that owning Pokemon was only made possible by the work of a dedicated inventor way back when. He read up about the invention of and changes to the PC system, how so many people from so many regions worked together to help people catch and trade Pokemon to their hearts' content.

And he read about all the Champions from each region, young and old, male and female, all types of people who had managed to attain the highest honor of their land. The only thing that united them was that they were… well… extraordinary. They all had a knack for battling that set them apart from the masses. Like Cheren, maybe. He could see Cheren being next in the long list of Unova Champions, a fitting reward for the boy who spent so much time learning how to battle. That'd be kind of neat, being friends with a Champion, right? It'd be something, at least.

That's how Jimmy first learned about the voices.

They were a footnote in the history books, a trivia fact long forgotten by most outside the world of academia. But there were four Champions who had, independent of one another, spoken of being guided by a series of voices, who claimed that those voices were what had made them Champions when they had been nobodies mere weeks ago. And the chosen ones weren't just Champions, they were legends, the best of the best.

Red. The first of those guided by the voices, a quiet and somber boy from Kanto who escaped into the mountains for training shortly after his winning the Championship, who refused to tell stories about his experiences.

AJ. An energetic boy from Johto who tracked Red down after becoming Champion and convinced him to return to society, proving himself the master of two regions rather than just one.

A. An enigmatic girl from Hoenn who had awoken the legendary Rayquaza when the world was being consumed by thunder and sun, whose Azumarill was strong enough to take down most challengers all by itself.

Napoleon. A serious if eccentric boy from Sinnoh who saved the world from being utterly destroyed by a madman in between trips to the casino.

There were rumors of others- those from other worlds, those who had perished at the voices' hands, those forced to kill their pets by the voices' commands- but none of those really panned out. Red, AJ, A, Napoleon… those were the Big Four. The voices' true Champions. The ones whose names the history books would never forget.

There were a few common factors to those chosen by the voices, Jimmy learned as his research soon zeroed in on the topic. They were all young, teenagers at the oldest; they all lived with their mothers, but never their fathers; they were all only children. They were from small towns which lacked so much as a Pokemon Center or Pokemart. And they had never owned a single Pokemon before their experiences, let alone proven their worth as competent Trainers. And Jimmy quickly made the connection that he, too, fit these criteria, though he was far from alone in that respect.

They were each from different regions, too, at least the confirmed ones, the Big Four. And Unova wasn't on the list. Not yet.

It was a stupid dream, he knew, and yet it was the most attainable of the lot. Becoming a Champion on his own, or even a Gym Leader, just wasn't going to happen; he didn't have the skills or knowledge for it. But neither had those four kids when they had been chosen. If only the voices chose him… well, maybe then he'd have a shot at being in the history books rather than just reading them. It was the only way it'd happen, that much seemed all too certain.

Jimmy wasn't quite sure how to feel when he heard that Professor Juniper would bring over Pokemon for him and his friends to take. On the one hand, that was another unifying factor for the Big Four- they'd all been chosen just before receiving Pokemon from a Professor. But after that, if nothing happened… well, that would be the end of it. His dreams would be over, once and for all.

Despite his mother asking him to get some sleep so he'd be well-rested before the big day, Jimmy just couldn't sleep. He spent hour after hour sitting up in bed reading about the experiences of the Champions who the voices had chosen, and wishing fervently that he would be the next in the list, that soon enough scholars would have to talk about the Big Five. He grew groggy and fell asleep on top of one of his books as the sun was already rising and dreamed of Indigo Plateau and Giratina and Team Rocket.

When he heard the voices that morning, Jimmy half-suspected he was still asleep. He had gotten his hopes up for what he knew was a highly unlikely event, and now his subconscious was imagining how it might be to live that dream. But when bumping into walls and tables made his knees ache, and when the sound of Bianca's too-loud voice on top of the cacophony filling his head made his head pound with every word, Jimmy realized that this was no dream. It was really happening. The dream that he had held for so long was coming true at last.

Bianca and Cheren both gave him strange looks as he walked aimlessly in circles before choosing his first Pokemon. As he stood in front of the bag, uncertain which Poke Ball to claim as his own, he glanced in their direction and opened his mouth.

It was hard to make himself speak; the accounts had mentioned that, of course, but it had never really been part of the image he had of his guided journey. He could only force out a few words, but he knew just what to say, having gone over the words in his mind hundreds of times before. "The voices came for me."

"WHAT?!" Bianca cried.

Cheren raised an eyebrow. "No. You're kidding."

"You'll see." Jimmy laughed as he took Tepig, letting the voices take control as he won his first ever Pokemon battles with their guidance.

It started out going as well as he had imagined. He had a full team of Pokemon. It only took a few hours for him to get his first Badge, and another day to get his second. The voices made him beat everybody in battle, even Cheren, who'd been learning battle strategies all his life. Jimmy felt a little bad for Cheren, who had done all that work for nothing, but that pity was far outweighed by his own excitement. Everything was happening so fast, and even his aching limbs and tiring body couldn't lessen Jimmy's enthusiasm. In only a week or two, if history was any guide (and it was already proving to be- his reading wasn't for nothing, after all!), it'd be only a week or two before he returned home, not as a novice Trainer, not as a nobody, but as Champion of the Unova region, and maybe even saving the world in the process.

And then…

He'd been in the Daycare a lot of times, but this time was different. The voices seemed distant, muffled, and all he could hear were variations of the same cry.

_BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD_

_PC NEEDS BLOOD_

_BILL YOUR DEFEAT WILL NOT BE IN VAIN_

_N SAYS RELEASE THE POKEMON GUYS_

And… it was the voices. Not him. He couldn't do anything to stop his hands from pressing the same buttons on the computer over and over again. _Release. Release. Release._

And then they were all gone.

The Tepig he'd half-expected, even if he had grown to like Commander Bacon some. All but AJ had lost their starters too, and there had been voices wanting to take away his starter since the beginning, as well as suggestions that all of the voices' Fire-type starters were destined to be released. But the others… Pansage, who'd grown so strong in such a short time… and the others, which he barely knew, and never would get the time to bond with…

Some of the voices regretted the passing of his teammates; others guided his into catching new ones as replacements. But it couldn't make up for all that had happened.

He knew about the releasing, of course. He'd memorized all the Pokemon released by the Big Four during their journeys, even the names and species of the dozen released by Red on "Bloody Sunday". But there was a difference between reading about released Pokemon and releasing your own, watching yourself type in the commands to get rid of your beloved companions while being powerless to stop it.

And this was worse than ever before. Even when Red had lost so many on "Bloody Sunday", he still had enough Pokemon left to have a full team and then some. But what was he left with? A single Tympole, and a Purrloin in the PC, that horrible, bloodthirsty PC. Practically nothing.

Jimmy wasn't sure how he could go on having lost so much… but he had to. The voices wouldn't let him stop to mourn, after all. No time for rest when there was a region to be conquered.

Jimmy had dreamed of becoming Champion. He hadn't considered that there would be difficulties along the way, that he could not reach greatness without suffering in the process.

And his friends had paid the ultimate price for his naivete.


End file.
